This article develops a sociological analysis and critique of including socioeconomic factors (such as education, employment, income and housing) in risk assessment tools that inform sentencing decisions. Through stigmatization and rationalization, risk assessment is likely to produce sentencing disparities as well as social inequalities more generally.

Based on in-depth interviews with 28 couples, this article explores how women don’t just follow traditional gendered norms that prescribe that they should be cautious in public space. Rather, many feel ambivalent about, and sometimes resist, such norms, and negotiate norms and safekeeping with their male partners.

Vanderveen, Gabry & Gwen van Eijk (2016) Criminal but Beautiful: A Study on Graffiti and the Role of Value Judgments and Context in Perceiving Disorder, European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 22(1): 107-125. (open access here)

Based on qualitative and quantitative data gathered among the Dutch public, we demonstrate that different value judgments underlie both positive and negative attitudes towards graffiti. The varying value judgments imply different policy responses to graffiti.

Based on in-depth interviews, this article challenges the idea that Dutch society is classless. Rather, people talk about equality and individuality to deny or flatten class hierarchy and individualize class differences. Higher-educated respondents in particular construct a class hierarchy based on education.

‘Social mixing’ is a core component of European and North American urban regeneration policies: social mixing is employed in socio-economically and ethnically or racially segregated areas and aim to make the population more mixed in terms of socio-economic status and ethnic or racial background.

Based on 30 in-depth interviews with residents living in a multi-ethnic and a mono-ethnic neighbourhood in Rotterdam, I explore how neighbour interaction reconstructs social boundaries rather than breaking them down.

Eijk, G. van (2010) Exclusionary policies are not just about the ‘neoliberal city’: a critique on theories of urban revanchism and the case of Rotterdam, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 34(4): 820-834 (pdf here)

This article scrutinizes the claim that exclusionary policies are driven by economic insecurities and motives to attract capital. Rather, urban policies are intertwined with ideas about multiculturalism, integration and national unity, and demands for social order.

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Eijk, G. van (2010) Does living in a poor neighbourhood result in network poverty? A study on local networks, locality-based relationships and neighbourhood settings, Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 25(4): 467-480. (open access here)

Through a detailed analysis of the formation of personal networks of people living in a poor neighbourhood and those living in an affluent neighbourhood in Rotterdam, I conclude that the problem of network poverty is not in the first place spatial but the result of lack of participation in certain settings. As a consequence, social mixing policies in urban neighourhoods can be of limited success.

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Blokland, Talja & Gwen van Eijk (2010) Do people who like diversity practice diversity in neighbourhood life? Neighbourhood use and social networks of ‘diversity seekers’ in a mixed neighbourhood, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 36(2): 313-332. (pdf here)

We use social network data collected in a mixed inner-city neighbourhood in Rotterdam to demonstrate that a preference for a diverse neighbourhood does not necessarily translate into distinct practices or social networks that enhance the integration of ethnic minorities into mainstream society.